Start of the survey

After the weekend stop in Galway we hit the ocean and are now waiting for the first blue whiting schools to show up.
TRIDENS reached the official starting point of the survey yesterday evening at around 3 o’clock. For now Posseidon is still relatively friendly to us, but if we believe the weather predictions, we are due for some heavy winds on Friday

Our German colleague Matthias Schaber brought his nice GoPro camera and recorded our departure:

Calibration with gale warnings

Prior to the weekend stop in Galway the acoustic equipment has been calibrated in the Bantry Bay. Due to relatively strong winds (gale warnings), calibrating was a rather difficult task. We managed to get an acceptable calibration out of it for the most important echosounder (38 kHz), but unfortunately we couldn’t calibrate the 120 kHz. Luckily we will have a second chance during the post-calibration planned to take place in Loch Eriboll at the end of the trip.